Some scholars in Turkey, the usual suspects long known for their anti-Turkish government and anti-Turkish state positions, are circulating a petition apologizing from Armenians. It is a free country; everyone can apologize to anyone, so there is no issue there. The issue arises when these people, and/or their supporters in the media, attempt to misrepresent the situation as if Turkey apologizes.
I do not apologize because, frankly, I am still waiting, like Turkey does since the conclusion of WWI, for the six apologies due from the following to the Turkish nation:
The first, from Britain: for the wartime propaganda in the “Blue Book” on which today’s genocide claims are built; for the naval blockade of the food shipments to Anatolia which exacerbated the starvation conditions there; and for raining death and destruction on our grandparents’ in Anatolia;
The second, from France: for the wartime propaganda in the “Yellow Books” and for raining death and destruction on our grandparents’ in Anatolia;
The third, from the Tsarist Russia: for destroying a millennium of relatively harmonious Turkish-Armenian co-habitation in Anatolia with her expansionist policies and brutal invasion of Anatolia using Armenians;
The fourth, from the U.S. Protestant Missionaries sent from Boston: for dividing and polarizing teachings that destroyed a millennium of relatively harmonious Turkish-Armenian co-habitation in Anatolia and caused mutual killings and for doing this inhumanity in the name of God;
The fifth, from the New York Times: for biased and inflammatory coverage of Turkish-Armenians conflict in 1915; for not checking sources; for taking partisan reports filed by Armenian revolutionaries via missionaries and diplomats at face value; and for publishing 145 prejudiced reports demonizing Turks while allowing zero rebuttals to Turks;
This sixth, from the Ottoman-Armenians: for destroying a millennium of relatively harmonious Turkish-Armenian co-habitation in Anatolia where Armenians prospered in peace by resorting to propaganda, agitation, terror, rebellions, and treason, in that order, between 1877-1920;
When I get my apologies from the UK, France, Russia, US missionaries, the New York Times, and the Ottoman-Armenians, then I will offer my apology for the human suffering that was experienced by all Ottoman citizens, not Armenians alone, from 1911 to 1922.
WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS TRUTH AND HONESTY, NOT SELECTIVE MORALITY
BIAS IN THE PHRASE “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”
If one cherishes values like objectivity, truth, and honesty, then one should use the phrase “Turkish-Armenian conflict”. Asking someone “Do you accept or deny Armenian Genocide” shows anti-Turkish bias. The question, in all fairness, should be re-phrased: “What is your stand on the Turkish-Armenian conflict?”
Turks believe it was a civil war within a world war, engineered, provoked, and waged by the Armenians with active support from Russia, England, and France, and passive support from the U.S. diplomats, missionaries, media, and others with anti-Turkish agendas, all eyeing the vast territories of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. [1]
Most Armenians claim it is a one way genocide, totally ignoring the Armenian complicity in war crimes ranging from raids, rebellions, and terrorism to treason, causing many casualties in the Muslim, mostly Turkish, community.
GENOCIDE ALLEGATIONS IGNORE “THE SIX T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT”
While some amongst us may be forgiven for taking the ceaseless Armenian propaganda at face value and believing blatant Armenian falsifications [2] merely because they are repeated so often, it is difficult and painful for people like us, sons and daughters of the Turkish survivors most of whose signatures you see below. [3]
Those seemingly endless “War years” of 1912-1922 (seferberlik yillari) brought wide-spread death and destruction on to all Ottoman citizens. No Turkish family was left untouched, those of most of the signatories’ below included. Those nameless, faceless, selfless Turkish victims are killed for a second time today with politically motivated and baseless charges of Armenian genocide.
Allegations of Armenian genocide are racist and dishonest history.
They are racist because they imply only Armenian (or Christian) dead count, the Turkish (or Muslim) dead do not. [4] The former must be remembered and grieved; the latter must be ignored and forgotten. Do you know how many Muslims, mostly Turks, were killed during World War One? Answer: About 3 million, including half a million of them at the hands of well-armed, well-motivated, and ruthless Armenian revolutionaries and para-military thugs. [3,5] Compare that with less than 300,000 Armenian casualties [8] which number is gradually magnified to 1.5 million over the years through Armenian propaganda.
And the allegations of Armenian genocide are dishonest because they simply dismiss
“THE SIX T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT”:
1) TUMULT (as in numerous Armenian armed uprisings between 1890 and 1920) [6,7]
2) TERRORISM (by Armenian nationalists and militias victimizing Ottoman-Muslims between 1882-1920) [8,9]
3) TREASON (Armenians joining the invading enemy armies as early as 1914 and lasting until 1921) [6,7,8,9,10]
4) TERRITORIAL DEMANDS (from 1877 to present, where Armenians were a minority, not a majority, attempting to establish Greater Armenia. Ironically, if the Armenians succeeded, it would be one of the first apartheids of the 20th Century, with a Christian minority ruling over a Muslim majority ) [1-11]
5) TURKISH SUFFERING AND LOSSES (i.e. those caused by the Armenian nationalists: 524,000 Muslims, mostly Turks, met their tragic end at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries during WWI, per Turkish Historical Society. This figure is not to be confused with 2.5 million Muslim dead who lost their lives due to non-Armenian causes during WWI. Grand total: more than 3 million, according to Justin McCarthy) [7-10]
6) TERESET (temporary resettlement) triggered by the first five T’s above and amply documented as such; not to be equated to the Armenian misrepresentations as genocide.) [12]
Armenians, thus, effectively put an end to their millennium of relatively peaceful and co-habitation in Anatolia with Turks, Kurds, Circassians, and other Muslims by killing their Muslim neighbors and openly joining the invading enemy. Muslims were only defending their home like any citizen anywhere would do.
VERDICT WITHOUT DUE PROCESS AMOUNTS TO LYNCHING
Those who take the Armenian “allegations” of genocide at face value seem to also ignore the following facts concerning international law:
1- Genocide is a legal, technical term precisely defined by the U.N. 1948 convention (Like all proper laws, it is not retroactive to 1915.) [13]
2- Genocide verdict can only be given by a “competent court” after “due process” where both sides are properly represented and evidence mutually cross examined. [14]
3- For a genocide verdict, the accusers must prove “intent” and “motive” at a competent court and by allowing due process to run its natural course. This was not, perhaps cannot ever be, done by the Armenians, whose evidence mostly fall into five major categories: hearsay, mis-representations, exaggerations, forgeries, and “other”. [15]
4- Such a “competent court” was never convened in the case of Turkish-Armenian conflict and a genocide verdict does not exist (save a Kangaroo court in occupied Istanbul in 1920 where partisanship, vendettas, and revenge motives left no room for due process.) [8]
5- Genocide claim is political, not historical or factual. It reflects bias against Turks. Therefore, the term genocide must be used with the qualifier “alleged”, for scholarly objectivity and truth. [1-15]
6- Recognizing Armenian claim as genocide will deeply insult Turkish-Americans as well as Turkish-Europeans, and Turks around the globe. Such a conduct would negatively influence the excellent relations currently enjoyed between the U.S. and Turkey, if not the West and Turkey. It will, no doubt, please Armenian lobbies in the U.S. Europe and Turkey but disappoint, insult, and outrage Turkey, one of America’s closest allies since the Korean War of 1950-53. Turks stood shoulder to shoulder with Americans in Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and more. Armenian lobbies will have been allowed to poison the U.S.-Turkey relations. American gratitude and thanks will appear to come in the form of the worst insult that can be dished out to an entire nation.
7- History is not a matter of “conviction, consensus, political resolutions, propaganda, or public relations.” History is a matter of research, peer review, thoughtful debate, and honest scholarship. Even historians, by definition, cannot decide on a genocide verdict, which is reserved only for a “competent tribunal” with its legal expertise and due process.
8- What we witness today, therefore, amounts to lynching [14] of the Turks by Armenians and their supporters to satisfy the age old Armenian hate, bias, and bigotry. American values like fairness, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, objectivity, balance, honesty, and freedom of speech are stumped under the fanatic Armenian feet. Unprovoked , unjustified, and unfair defamation of Turkey, one of America’s closest allies in the troubled Middle East, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, in order to appease some nagging Armenian activists runs counter to American interests.
9- Hate-based, divisive, polarizing, and historically biased proclamations, such as Schiff’s HR 106, have never been an American way to do business. Why start now?
10- Those who claim genocide verdict [14] today, based on the much discredited Armenian evidence, are actually engaging in “conviction and execution without due process”, which is the dictionary definition of “lynch mobs”.
APOLOGY ?
Those who claim Turks need to apologize or show sensitivity to victims of WWI and/or their descendants-without remembering or respecting the Muslim, mostly Turkish, victims of the same WWI due to same wartime conditions-are insulting the silent memory of millions of Muslim, mostly Turkish, victims of WWI tragedy. They are also engaging in Ethocide [16],
A new term coined by a Turkish-American in 2003, Ethocide means “systematic extermination of ethics via malicious mass deception for political, economical, religious, social, and other gain.” Ethocide comes with a new Turkish companion term: “AHLAKKIRIM” [17]
If an apology is needed today, then the entire humanity should apologize for the mistakes and excesses of the past generations, without resorting to “selective morality” and discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, or religion. And if more sensitivity is required, then it should be provided by all for all, without resorting to division, polarization, hostility, bias, or bigotry. Our accounst of WWI are replete with expressions of sadness and sympathy for all the victims of WWI, Turk, Kurd, Laz, Circassian, Armenian, Arab, Greek, Jew, and all others. We do not feel we should segregate the Armenians or others from this lot and grieve only for them.
If an apology is needed today, we should all start apologizing for the world hunger, global warming, aids epidemics, endless wars, inequity in income distribution, plundering human and natural resources, violation of civil rights of women, children, and some cases all humans, global lack of education and health care, and more.
ISN’T IT TIME TO STOP FIGHTING THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND GIVE PEACE A CHANCE?
We would like to conclude with a heartfelt message of peace:
We wish the entire world just and lasting peace, good health, balanced and thriving nature, sufficient prosperity and unlimited happiness in the coming years.
As Ataturk so ably put it for all of us: “Peace at home, Peace in the World.”
………………………..
References:
[1] History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol I & II, Stanford Shaw (Cambridge University Press, London, New York, Melbourne, 1976)
[2] The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, Heath W. Lowry ( The Isis Press, Istanbul, Turkey, 1990)
[3] The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire, Justin McCarthy (Arnold, London, U.K., 2001
[4] Declaration Signed by 69 Prominent North American Academicians, New York Times and Washington Post, may 19, 1985 (for a copy:
[5] Ermeniler: Sürgün ve Göç, Türk Tarih Kurumu (Ankara, Turkey, 2004)
[6] Houshamatyan of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Centennial, Album-Atlas, Volume I, Epic Battles, 1890-1914 (The Next Day Color Printing, Inc., Glendale, CA, U.S.A., 2006)
[7] The Armenian Rebellion at Van, Justin McCarthy, Esat Arslan, Cemaletting Taskiran, Omer Turan (The University of Utah Press, Salt lake City, USA, 2006)
[8] The Armenian File, Kamuran Gurun (Rustem Bookshop, Mersin, Turkey, 1985)
[9] The Armenians in History and the Armenian Question, Esat Uras (Documentary Publications, Istanbul, Turkey, 1988)
[10] Free E-Book : “Genocide Of Truth” by Sukru Server Aya, Based On Neutral or Anti-Turkish Sources ( Istanbul Commerce University, Turkey, 2008) For a copy: https://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/04/2429-new-e-book-genocide-of-truth-based.html
[11] “Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People”, Michael M. Gunter (Greenwood Press, New York, USA, 1986)
[12] “Ermenilerin Zorunlu Göçü, 1915-1917, Kemal Cicek (Turk tarih Kurumu, Ankara, Turkey, 2005)
[13] Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
[14] Article 6, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
[15] Article 2, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
[16] Ergun KIRLIKOVALI, 2003, “It Was Not ‘Genocide’; It was – and still is – ‘Ethocide’ “, ;
[17] Ergun KIRLIKOVALI, 2003, “SOYKIRIM DEGIL, AHLAKKIRIM ”
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